Star Trek: First Contact
"Resistance is Futile." The Borg begin a new invasion of the Federation, but this time they take the battle to the year 2063: the launch of Earth’s first warp ship and First Contact with extraterrestrials. Summary When the Borg begin a second invasion of the Federation, the newly commissioned ''Enterprise''-E, commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard is given orders to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone and stay out of the way during the coming battle. However, ignoring the orders, Picard takes the Enterprise to Earth. Upon arrival, the Enterprise crew discovers the fleet engaged in combat with a massive Borg cube. Coming across the [[USS Defiant (NX-74205)|USS Defiant]], commanded by Lt. Commander Worf, badly damaged and drifting in space, the crew beams the Defiant survivors aboard just before the attacking Borg cube is destroyed. (See also: Battle of Sector 001) As it explodes in space, the cube launches a Sphere which sets course for Earth, opening a temporal vortex and disappearing into it. Picard orders the Enterprise to pursue, and as a result, the ship is caught in a temporal wake, emerging to discover Earth suddenly populated by 9 billion Borg. Deducing that the Borg altered history, Picard orders the Enterprise to follow the Borg into the past...back to April 4th, 2063, the day before humanity's First Contact with beings from another world. In orbit of Earth, the Enterprise crew destroys the Borg sphere and sends an away team to the surface to investigate the damage done by the attackers. On the surface, they discover the warp ship Phoenix in need of repairs and its creator Zefram Cochrane missing. Picard orders an engineering team to the surface to make the necessary repairs and shares a private moment with Data and the historic warp ship. Suddenly, they are attacked by Lily Sloane, a comrade of Cochrane's, who suddenly collapses, sick with radiation poisoning. She is beamed aboard the Enterprise for treatment. In orbit, Enterprise crew members quickly realize that the ship has been boarded by surviving Borg who begin to assimilate the Enterprise and its crew. Returning to the ship, Picard and Data lead an assault team in attempt destroy the Borg who have infested Engineering. Though the team intends to enter the section and puncture a plasma coolant tank, the plan does not go well and Data is captured. In the freshly assimilated engine room of the Enterprise, Data is introduced to the leader of the hive, the Borg Queen who entices him to join their cause. On the surface, Riker, Troi, and La Forge track down Cochrane and are able to convince the skeptical inventor of their origins and to continue with his flight, despite the recent attack. As the situation aboard ship erupts, and it seems hope for the crew is lost, Picard orders the evacuation of the Enterprise and activates the self-destruct sequence. He then proceeds to Engineering, infested with Borg, to retrieve Data. He offers himself in exchange, but Data doesn't want to go saying that he has joined the Borg Queen. Assisting Cochrane, Riker and La Forge take part in the warp flight, launching the Pheonix and preparing to jump to faster than light speeds. Data positions the Enterprise over the quaint vessel and fires several quantum torpedoes at the Phoenix, but misses by the smallest of margins. He then bursts a plasma coolant tank, releasing plasma coolant which will dissolve organic material on contact, killing all the Borg in the room. Data is immersed in the coolant and pulls the Queen down into it with him. As the Borg queen is killed, her drones all over the ship fall down dead. Picard survives by climbing above the coolant level, then releases the deadly gas before any harm can be done to him, then goes below to retrieve Data. On the surface, Riker, La Forge and Cochrane return from their flight, meeting up with Picard, Lily and the rest of the Enterprise crew in time to witness a strange alien ship land on Earth soil. As Cochrane and the people of the mid-21st century have their first encounter with the mysterious aliens known as the Vulcans, Picard and his crew slip away, returning to their ship and setting a course for the 24th century. Memorable Quotes "So, you're all astronauts on some kind of... Star Trek?" : - Zefram Cochrane, to Riker, Troi, and Geordi "Captain, I believe I speak for everyone when I say, 'To hell with our orders.'" :- '''Data' "Tough little ship" "Little?" :- Riker and Worf, speaking about the Defiant "Tell your men to stand their ground. Fight hand to hand if they have to." :- Picard, to Daniels "Assimilate this!" :- Worf, before blowing up the Enterprise's deflector dish "Jean-Luc, blow up the damned ship!" "No! Nooooo!"... "You broke your little ships." :- Lily Sloane and Picard "They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they have done!" :- Picard, to Lily Sloane "Borg? Sounds Swedish..." :- Lily Sloane, to Picard "Definitely not Swedish!" :- Lily Sloane, after she saw Borg drones "Main power is off-line, we've lost shields and our weapons are gone!" (hits a console) "Perhaps today *is* a good day to die! Prepare for ramming speed!" :- Helm officer and Worf, on the Defiant "You do remember how to fire phasers...?" :- Riker to Worf "I don't want to be a Statue!" :- Zefram Cochrane, to Riker and La Forge "You told him about the Statue?" :- Riker to La Forge "I gotta take a leak." "Leak? I'm not detecting any leak." "Don't people from the 24th century ever pee?" :- Zefram Cochrane and La Forge "Resistance is futile" :- Data to the Borg Queen "No money? You mean you don't get paid?" "The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We wish to better ourselves and the rest of humanity." :- Lily and Picard Background Information *''Star Trek: First Contact'' marked the first time the words 'Star Trek' were ever uttered in the franchise in that order. In TNG: "All Good Things...", Q tells Picard "It's time to put an end to your trek through the stars." *Working titles for the film included Star Trek: 8, Star Trek Destinies, Star Trek: Generations II, Star Trek: Future Generations, Star Trek: Resurrection, Star Trek: Renaissance, Star Trek Regenerations and Star Trek: Borg (not to be confused with the video game that actually was called Star Trek: Borg). *Early drafts of the script of Star Trek: First Contact suggested that the Defiant was to be destroyed in the Battle of Sector 001. In the DVD commentary for the film, First Contact co-writer and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine producer Ronald D. Moore said that DS9's Executive Producer Ira Steven Behr had seen the script and objected to the needless destruction of his ship in a story that didn't even involve the DS9 characters (apart from Worf). It would also prove to be inconvenient for the television show, so the Defiant was eventually allowed to survive the battle, and a line suggesting that the Defiant was "adrift, but salvagable" was added to clear up any ambiguity. No reference to the damage the Defiant received during the battle was ever made on DS9. *When releasing the deflector emitter, each of the computer panels that Picard, Worf and Hawk use to enter the sequence have the phrase "AE35" on them. This is a subtle reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey, AE35 being the communications link that the onboard computer HAL9000 disables. *Early in the movie, Zefram Cochrane references the constellation Leo, the constellation in which Wolf 359 is located. *Ensign Lynch was named after Internet critic Timothy W. Lynch, who reviewed every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. *Picard quotes Moby Dick and acts a lot like Captain Ahab. Two years later, Patrick Stewart played Captain Ahab in a 1998 TV mini-series. *The events of Star Trek: First Contact were later referred to in DS9: "In Purgatory's Shadow", VOY: "Year of Hell, Part II", and VOY: "Relativity." The Borg sphere was recovered in ENT: "Regeneration", while a slightly different version of Earth's first contact with Vulcans can be seen in ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly". *Jack Shearer would later reprise his role of Admiral Hayes in VOY: "Hope and Fear" and "Life Line", apparently not killed when his ship was destroyed. *Although Ethan Phillips portrays the Maitre'd in this film, he specifically requested to not be mentioned in the ending credits. His thoughts behind this were that it would be funny to confuse fans who recognized him from playing Neelix but were unable to confirm his identity. *Don Stark (Nicky the Nose) had earlier appeared as Ashrock in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Melora." *William Riker calls the Defiant a "tough little ship." In the DS9 episode "Defiant," Thomas Riker called it the same thing. *Quark will speak the same words ("The line must be drawn here! This far and no further!") as Picard does in "The Dogs of War." *According to the (apocryphal) Customizable Card Game by Decipher, the Vulcan who greeted Zefram Cochrane was named Solkar, the grandfather of Sarek and the great-grandfather of Spock. *Robert Picardo (the Doctor), Ethan Phillips (the holographic maitre'D), Dwight Schultz (Lt. Reginald Barclay) and Alice Krige (the Borg Queen) later all appeared together in the Star Trek: Voyager series finale "Endgame". *Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi), Robert Picardo (the Doctor), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Dwight Schultz (Lt. Barclay) and Jack Shearer (Admiral Hayes) would all later appear in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Life Line" together. *Michael Westmore was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on First Contact, though he unfortunately lost to Rick Baker's work on The Nutty Professor. *The producers tried to get the kiss between Data and the Borg Queen nominated for the MTV Movie Awards "Best Kiss", but were unsuccessful. *This is the first time multi-species members of the Borg Collective can be seen including several Klingons, Cardassians and Bajorans. *Assimilated early in the film, Ensign Paul Porter can be seen in the background of many scenes in engineering, partially "Borgified". (He even gets to scream following the death of the Queen.) *Much of the score for this film was actually composed by Joel Goldsmith and was, due to liscensing issues, not included on the soundtrack release. *''First Contact'' is considered by most fans to be the best of the TNG movies and is the second highest grossing Star Trek film to date, opening at number one in the box office. *Costume designer Deborah Everton would go on to design the costumes for Ron D. Moore's "reinvention" of Battlestar Galactica in 2003. *Tom Hanks was originally considered for the role of Cochrane, but the filming of this movie coincided with the filming of That Thing You Do! which prevented him from taking the part. *Brannon Braga, who cowrote the film, can be seen sitting at a table near the bar in the holodeck sequence. *The program menu in the holosuite depicts various holodeck programs from previous episodes. Specifically: Café des Artistes (TNG: "We'll Always Have Paris"), Charnock's Comedy Cabaret (TNG: "The Outrageous Okona"), "The Big Goodbye" (TNG: "The Big Goodbye", "Manhunt", and "Clues"), Emerald Wading Pool (TNG: "Conundrum") and the "Equestrian Adventure" (TNG: "Pen Pals"). *The opera that Picard is listening to is Berlioz' "Les Troyens" - "Hylas' Song" from the beginning of Act V. (Hylas is a homesick young sailor being rocked to sleep by the sea as he dreams of the homeland he will never see again.) *Michael Zaslow (TOS: "The Man Trap", "I, Mudd"), best known as the first person to be pronounced "He's dead, Jim", appears as Eddy, a bartender in Bozeman. *Rumors have circulated stating that Lt. Hawk was intended to be Star Trek's first homosexual character, however, this has never substantiated. In a Star Trek novel in the Section 31 series, his character did have a homosexual partner, though. *Several new classes of ships were introduced for the battle with the Borg, one being the ''Norway''-class starship which was later lost due to a computer glitch and subsequently never seen on Star Trek again. Other new ship classes included the ''Akira''-class, ''Saber''-class and ''Steamrunner''-class vessels. *Also seen in the background of the battle sequence are a ''Nebula''-class starship, a ''Oberth''-class science ship, and a ''Miranda''-class vessel. *The Nebula-class vessel is not present in the shots of the battle on the original 1997 UK VHS release of the movie. In the recent DVD releases of the movie, the vessel is seen firing at the cube alongside the Enterprise and an unnamed Norway-class ship, just after Captain Picard gives the order to fire at the Borg cube on his specified target. It is unknown why the ship was not present in the originally distributed version of the movie. *A CGI model of the Millennium Falcon (created for the Star Wars special editions) was inserted into the Borg attack on Earth by John Knoll, an Industrial Light and Magic visual effects manager. The ship appears only briefly in the background. *The teaser trailer for the film used score from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and various shots from other Trek movies and TNG episodes. It also featured an alternate take of Picard saying, "The line must be drawn here!", various shots not included in the film and a shot of the [[USS Voyager|USS Voyager]] from Star Trek: Voyager firing an antimatter spread... an event that has never actually taken place in any episode or film to date. *The theatrical trailer utilized bits of score from the crash sequence in Star Trek: Generations. *This is the first and only Star Trek movie to have rock 'n' roll in the soundtrack (though Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home does feature some interesting late 80s jazz). *This is one of only two Star Trek movies to be given a rating of PG-13 by the MPAA, the other being Star Trek: Nemesis. *This movie introduced a new set of Starfleet uniforms which would go on to be featured in the last three seasons of DS9 and make a few appearances in Star Trek: Voyager. *This was, sadly, the last appearance of Patti Yasutake as Nurse Lt. Alyssa Ogawa. *According to the ENT episode "Carbon Creek", though this movie records the first official contact between Earth and Vulcan, contact was actually made in 1957 in a place called Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania, nearly 110 years prior. *Subsequent Vulcan starships seen in Star Trek: Enterprise would be based upon the ''T'Plana-Hath''-type lander seen in this movie. *''First Contact'' would be the last Star Trek movie to be given "Two Thumbs Up" by Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel who stated that, because of this film, Star Trek was "cool again". *When Picard shows Lily Earth from orbit, New Zealand appears to be missing. *At one point a crewmember mentions that the Borg have infiltrated Deck 26 whereas Picard later states that the Enterprise contains only 24 decks. This is the first in a long line of errors regarding just how many decks there are aboard the Enterprise-E throughout the film series. *The Enterprise-E sickbay is a redress of the ''Voyager'' sickbay while the observation lounge is a redress of the ''Enterprise''-D set of the same use, dating back to the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Links and References Main Cast *Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard / Locutus of Borg *Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker *Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data *LeVar Burton as Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge *Michael Dorn as Lt. Commander Worf *Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi *Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher *Alfre Woodard as Lily Sloane *James Cromwell as Zefram Cochrane *Alice Krige as The Borg Queen Starfleet Personnel *Michael Horton as Daniels (as Security Officer) *Neal McDonough as Lt. Hawk *Marnie McPhail as Eiger *Robert Picardo as Holographic Doctor *Dwight Schultz as Lt. Barclay *Adam Scott as Defiant Conn Officer *Jack Shearer as Admiral Hayes *Eric Steinberg as Porter *Scott Strozier as Security Officer *Patti Yasutake as Nurse Ogawa *Victor Bevine as Guard #1 *David Cowgill as Guard #2 *Scott Haven as Guard #3 *Annette Helde as Guard #4 *Majel Barrett as Computer Voice *Cameron as Kellogg (uncredited) Nightclub *C.J. Bau as Bartender *Hillary Hayes as Ruby *Julie Morgan as Singer in Nightclub *Ronald R. Rondell as Henchman *Don Stark as Nicky the Nose *Ethan Phillips as Maitre d' (uncredited) *Ray Uhler as Dancer (uncredited) *Mike Boss as Nightclub Patron (uncredited) *Brannon Braga as Nightclub Patron (uncredited) *Ronald D. Moore as Nightclub Patron (uncredited) Missile Complex *Cully Fredricksen as Vulcan Captain *Tamara Lee Krinsky as Townsperson *Michael Zaslow as Eddy (uncredited) Borg *Don Fischer *J.R. Horsting *Heinrich James *Andrew Palmer *Jon David Weigand *Dan Woren *Robert L. Zachar *Jeff Coopwood as Borg voice (uncredited) References Ahab; ''Akira''-class; antiproton; ''Appalachia'', USS; assimilation; atomic weapon; authorization code; auto-destruct; Battle of Sector 001; Berlioz, Louis Hector; "Big Good-Bye, The"; Bizet, Georges; Borg; Borg cube; Borg drone; Borg sphere; Borg Queen; ''Bozeman'', USS; ''Budapest'', USS; chronometric particle; Deep Space 5; ''Defiant'', USS; deflector control; deflector dish; Dixon Hill; Dyson; Earth; ECON; Emergency Medical Hologram; emotion chip; ''Endeavour'', USS; ''Enterprise''-E, USS; escape pod; First Contact; fractal encryption lockout; Gravett Island; holodeck; holodeck safety protocol; hydroponics; interplexing beacon; Ivor Prime; Kaplan (Enterprise-E); kilopascal; Lake Armstrong; ''Lexington'', USS; Luna; Lynch; ''Madison'', USS; "Magic Carpet Ride"; main engineering; maglock; mek'leth; ''Miranda''-class; Moby Dick; Montana; "Moonlight Becomes You"; ''Nebula''-class; neuroprocessor; New Berlin; ''Norway''-class; ''Oberth''-class; "Ooby Dooby"; opera; ocular implant; Orbison, Roy; phaser rifle; Phoenix; plasma coolant; quantum torpedo; Romulan Neutral Zone; Romulan Star Empire; ''Saber''-class; sickbay; Smithsonian Institution; ''Sovereign''-class; Starfleet Academy; ''Steamrunner''-class; stellar cartography; Steppenwolf; T'plana-Hath; tequila; temporal vortex; theta radiation; throttle assembly; ''Thunderchild'', USS; Titan V; tricorder; Tycho City; Typhon sector; vice admiral; Vulcan; warp drive; whiskey; World War III; ''Yeager'', USS; Zefram Cochrane High School; zero-gravity combat training External Links * * First Contact de:Star Trek: Der erste Kontakt es:Star Trek VIII: First Contact fr:Star Trek: First Contact nl:Star Trek: First Contact sv:Star Trek: First Contact